Obscene conent case against Google, Facebook, others deferred till 23 May

The web content censorship row involving the Indian operations of several leading web companies including Google, Facebook and Microsoft has been deferred until 23 May.

Top executives from all the companies were required to be present in court yesterday but had been exempted from appearing in person by the order of a higher court.

The case follows from a complaint registered by journalist, Vinay Rai, who claimed that web content companies should face prosecution for alleged offenses such as criminal conspiracy, defamation, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and race and obscene content, among others.

Google, Facebook and Microsoft have vigorously petitioned to quash the case and the Indian arm of Yahoo has been able to extract itself from proceedings.

Under new laws passed last year, internet companies are obliged to screen material that was objectionable, harmful, defamatory or blasphemous within 36 hours of notification.

The affected companies claim protection under India's IT laws from liability for user generated content however, they acknowledge they had a responsibility to remove content, in some cases, but only if notified about it.

Besides arguing for free speech, they also claim that monitoring their services without receiving complaints would not be feasible, given the huge volume of traffic on their sites. A conviction could land, the online executives jail time, in addition to significant amounts by way of fines.